A Dark and Stormy Night
by Dani-Ellie03
Summary: "Anyway, my point is that I didn't exactly get a lot of chances to get used to thunderstorms. This one is loud and it's keeping me awake." "So you decided to wake me up so it can keep us both awake?" Emma asked, arching an eyebrow at her son. "Yep," Henry replied around a stifled giggle. (or, the Charming Family waits out a middle-of-the-night thunderstorm)
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** A Dark and Stormy Night  
**Summary: **"Anyway, my point is that I didn't exactly get a lot of chances to get used to thunderstorms. This one is loud and it's keeping me awake." "So you decided to wake me up so it can keep us both awake?" Emma asked, arching an eyebrow at her son. "Yep," Henry replied around a stifled giggle.  
**Spoilers:** None, really. Set mid-season 2.  
**Rating/Warning: **K+, for language, mostly. Family fluff, as per usual.  
**Disclaimer:** _Once Upon a Time_ and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I borrowed them when they weren't looking.  
**Author's Note:** Fourth in my little series of "family things the Charmings never got to do so are doing now" but as always, this can be read as a standalone piece. The following was inspired by the sheer amount of thunderstorms the Boston area has experienced over the last couple of weeks. This probably won't end up being as long as my other stories (but I say that a lot, so who knows? ;)). Also as always, feedback makes my little day. Enjoy!

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The dilemma facing Henry Mills at the present moment was not one to be taken lightly. He was buried under his comforter for a reason, after all.

One heck of a storm was raging outside, hence Henry's decision to yank the covers over his head. On the list of things he enjoyed, he had recently discovered that thunderstorms ranked quite near to the bottom. Just above taking out the trash but well below homework.

He was, however, starting to get really hot under the covers and it was becoming a bit difficult to breathe. On the other hand, if he pulled the covers off his head now, he would have to deal with the sights and the sounds of the thunderstorm to end all thunderstorms.

Not that hiding out the comforter was really helping. The storm sounded as if it had come to a dead stop directly above their apartment building. The thunder was deafening, and the comforter didn't really do much in the way of muffling the sound. Short of fashioning small wads of toilet tissue into ear plugs, though, Henry didn't know what else to do.

Eventually, the need for fresh air won out. He whipped the comforter off his face and took a couple deep gulps of sweet, cool air. Just then, a whip-crack of thunder sounded, rattling the window panes and making Henry cry out in surprise. He clapped his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut as lightning almost immediately forked through the night sky, bathing the little loft bedroom in flickering, ethereal light.

He'd tried to simply ignore it all and go back to sleep, he really had. But the thunder was way too loud and the lightning way too bright. It flickered and flashed like a strobe light most of the time, making it hard for him to keep his eyes closed. A low rumble overhead crescendoed into another boom that shook the window panes, finally forcing him out of bed with a soft whimper.

Well, now what? There were no lights on downstairs, meaning the storm hadn't disturbed his grandparents enough that they'd gotten up. He listened for voices, thinking maybe they were talking in the dark, but he couldn't hear anything over the almost constant thunder.

Henry slowly approached his mother's bed, trying to figure out whether or not she was awake. The flashes of lightning didn't provide steady illumination but from what he could see, he didn't think she was. _How in the heck is she sleeping through this? _he silently wondered as he drew to a stop at the edge of the empty side of her mattress.

The thunder stopped for a few blissful seconds, just long enough for him to hear Emma's heavy breathing. Dang it, she was definitely asleep, and if she was sleeping through the chaos raging outside, he didn't stand a chance of waking her up.

Still, something within him that he didn't quite understand forced him to try. "Mom?" he called out tentatively.

She remained still, sprawled out on her back in the middle of the bed. When he still didn't get a response from a louder call of her name, Henry shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he tried to figure out his next step.

A sudden, deafening clap of thunder forced his hand, sending him scrambling for cover in his mom's bed. The bounce of the mattress finally roused Emma, who pushed herself up on one elbow and groggily mumbled, "Henry?"

"Sorry," he muttered back, even though he was secretly glad he'd woken her. "It's just–"

A flash of lightning illuminated the room, interrupting Henry's train of thought and making Emma instantly understand why her son had climbed into her bed in the middle of the night. "Oh, kid, really?" she asked through a soft groan, flopping back down on her pillow. "You're afraid of thunderstorms?"

"I'm not _afraid_ of them," he insisted. "I just don't really like them all that much."

Emma smirked as her eyes slid closed. "I'm sorry, my mistake."

She didn't believe him; he could tell. He tried not to sound insulted as he said, "This is only my third thunderstorm, you know."

That got her to blink her eyes open, frowning at her son in confusion. "Seriously? How have you survived eleven years on this planet and only been through three thunderstorms?"

Now it was Henry's turn to smirk. His mom had the hardest time trying to wrap her head around the unchanging nature of Storybrooke before she arrived. "The weather around here didn't change all that much before you came to town, Mom."

She heaved a sigh and swiped her hand over her face. "I am so not awake enough for this conversation."

"Anyway, my point is that I didn't exactly get a lot of chances to get used to thunderstorms. This one is loud and it's keeping me awake."

"So you decided to wake me up so it can keep us both awake?" she asked, arching an eyebrow at him.

"Yep," he replied around a stifled giggle.

"Gee, thanks." Emma sighed again as she turned onto her side, facing Henry. She shut her eyes and tucked her hands under her pillow, making herself comfortable. "You can stay here if you want. Just close your eyes, relax, and try to go back to sleep. Pretend you're listening to fireworks or something."

Henry frowned. He'd _tried_ to go back to sleep but the thunder and lightning were just too much. Emma didn't seem to be in the mood to talk, though, so he really had no other option but to try again. He snuggled under the covers, closed his eyes, and tried his hardest to ignore the storm.

A new round of thunder clapped overheard, startling the both of them. "Jesus," Emma muttered as her eyes snapped open.

"See what I mean?" Henry asked, his voice shaky. Though he didn't want to admit it, he was craving comfort. He inched closer to Emma, hating the fact that doing so would make it seem like he was scared. He wasn't scared, not really. He'd just had enough thunder and lightning for one night and wanted the storm to blow over already.

"It's all right, kid," Emma murmured.

"The storm's really close," he continued in a whisper. "I remember when Gramma taught us all how to count the time between seeing the lightning and hearing the thunder to figure out how far away the storm is. This was back before I knew she was my gramma, obviously, but–"

"I get it," Emma said, smiling kindly. The claps of thunder and flashes of lightning were almost constant, leaving barely enough time between them to get out a one-Mississippi. "It's just a storm, Henry. Nothing's going to happen, I promise."

"I know," he said, smiling back and trying to make his shrug come across as nonchalant. "I'm just saying."

"We thought we heard voices," came a woman's soft voice from the doorway

Henry sat up and grinned at his grandmother and grandfather, who were standing at the top of the staircase and peeking into the room. Emma groaned softly as she sat up and combed her fingers through her hair. "You might as well come on in," she grumbled as she switched on the bedside lamp, causing everyone to squint against the sudden burst of light. "It doesn't look like any of us are going back to sleep any time soon."

Snow and David smiled as they stepped into the room. David took a seat on the edge of Henry's vacated daybed while Snow eased down at the foot of Emma's bed. "Please don't tell me you guys are afraid of storms, too," Emma said, frowning at her parents.

"I'm not afraid!" Henry huffed.

"My mistake," Emma repeated, smiling gently at him. Henry playfully narrowed his eyes at her in response.

"We're not afraid, either," David assured her with a smirk. "We were just checking on you, making sure you two were okay."

"We've lived through a thunderstorm or two," Emma said, then glanced at her son. "Well, most of us have lived through a thunderstorm or two. So yeah, we're okay. It is getting kind of cramped up here, though, so if we're going to do the whole waiting the storm out together thing, can we do it downstairs?"

"Of course," Snow agreed with a soft smile. "I'll whip up some hot chocolate with cinnamon while we wait."

Emma gazed longingly at her pillow for a brief moment before heaving another sigh and pushing herself off the bed. "Yeah, sure, why not? Tomorrow's Sunday. None of us have anywhere to be, so we can all sleep in."

"You mean today is Sunday," Henry corrected cheekily, indicating the bedside clock. It was just after one in the morning, indeed making it officially Sunday.

"No, I mean tomorrow's Sunday," Emma argued just as cheekily. "I've slept for like, an hour. I have had nowhere near a full night's sleep, which also means I haven't slept enough for Sunday to be today. It's still tomorrow."

David and Snow exchanged an amused grin at their baby girl's view of the space-time continuum.

Emma grabbed her pillow off the bed before heading towards the stairs. "I call dibs on the couch."

Henry fixed his grandparents with a mischievous grin as he hopped off the bed. "This is going to be so much fun," he giggled, his anxiety over the storm already fading at the notion of having a midnight adventure.

Snow and David chuckled as they followed their grandson down the stairs. Even if all they were doing was waiting out a thunderstorm, Henry was clearly thrilled to pieces with the idea of being up in the middle of the night. Emma, on the other hand, was tired, and a tired Emma was a cranky Emma. A cranky Emma could be funny, though; it all depended on the level of her crankiness. "I don't know if fun is the word I would choose," David whispered to his wife, making Snow muffle another giggle behind her hand.

"This is certainly shaping up to be an interesting couple of hours," Snow whispered back.

Henry glanced behind him at his grandparents, who were trying not to laugh, and then ahead of him at his mother, who had tiredly flopped down on the couch. He grinned to himself. Oh yes, the next couple of hours were going to prove to be very interesting indeed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note:** You guys are absolutely amazing. Thank you so much for all your kind words and the follows and favorites. Hope you like this next part!

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Henry jumped down off the last step and made a beeline for the couch. He settled down on the opposite end from Emma, a small, excited grin on his face. Emma gave him a weary smile in return as she sat up a little bit in an effort to make room for him, resting her back against the pillow propped up against the arm of the sofa.

Snow and David exchanged an amused look as David grabbed two chairs from the kitchen table, one for him and one for his wife. He dragged them over to the living area. When Emma saw what he was doing, she swung her legs off the sofa entirely, freeing up the middle cushion. "It's okay," David told her with a brief shake of his head. "Make yourself comfortable."

"You sure?" she asked.

"Quite."

"Just don't get _too_ comfortable," Henry teased, making Emma whimper softly. Clearly, she'd been hoping she would be able to curl up on the sofa and doze until the storm blew over.

Snow smiled to herself when she caught Henry winking at his grandfather, both of them obviously amused by poor Emma's exhaustion. With a tiny smile of gratitude at her father, Emma reclaimed her previous position, stretching her legs across the couch.

A particularly loud clap of thunder startled everyone. Both Emma and Henry jumped, and Henry clapped his hands over his ears. Emma heaved a sigh, mostly at herself for jumping due to the thunder, but Henry continued to stare up at the ceiling with his hands over his ears in preparation for the next rumble. "This the the worst storm ever," he muttered, mostly under his breath.

"Not even close," Emma said, her tone gentle but her expression inscrutable. Henry lowered his hands so he could hear his mother's story. "The worst storm ever was the one I was stuck outside in."

Snow, who had been listening to the conversation as she began preparing the cocoa, looked up sharply. David glanced over his shoulder to meet his wife's eyes before turning a concerned look on his daughter. "You were stuck outside in a storm like this?"

"Worse, actually." If she hadn't already focused inward on the memory, she would have seen how Snow had paused in the cocoa preparation and how her father was sitting at attention. Instead, she simply told the story as if it were any other story. "I was in a house with two other foster kids. My foster mother had taken us to the beach, just for something fun to do. We were only there a couple of hours when a storm rolled in off the ocean completely out of the blue. We grabbed our stuff and made a mad dash for the car only to find she'd locked the keys inside."

Henry exchanged a concerned glance with his grandparents but no one dared interrupt her. For one, they all wanted to know how the story ended, and for another, Emma didn't usually offer stories this freely. "She found a payphone, called her husband, and asked him to bring the extra key down but the beach was a bit of a drive from their house. We ended up huddled under the overhang of a beachside food stand while we waited for the storm to blow over. It was pouring, the wind kept blowing the towels and sand toys out of our hands, and the lightning was actually striking the water in front of us."

"Wow," Henry whispered, his eyes wide as saucers.

His voice seemed to bring Emma back to the present. Her eyes focused on her son as she gave him a little smile. "I pretty much got over my fear of storms that day. We all did. After being stuck outside during one that was so close, having to listen to one from inside someplace safe was a piece of cake."

David and Snow exchanged a pained glance. Though it was an innocent mistake that could have happened to anyone, they both felt responsible for Emma being in a position where her foster mother could have locked her out of the car during a storm in the first place. "How old were you?" Snow asked, smiling gently at her baby girl.

"Eight," Emma answered after a brief moment of thought. "Maybe nine." She finally glanced over at her parents and cringed when she caught the pain on their features. "It was an accident, obviously. She didn't mean to lock us out. Truth be told, after we got over the scariness of it, it was kind of fascinating. In that I hope I never have to go through this again kind of way, of course. I mean, how often do you get to be that close to nature's raw energy?"

"Or raw fury," David murmured.

"That, too," Emma smirked.

Her parents smiled at her, the tension in their bodies dissipating a little at the knowledge that the experience hadn't scarred her for life. David relaxed in the chair and Snow returned her attention to the cocoa. Henry, though, was still staring at his mother in not-at-all concealed awe. "What does it look like when lightning hits the water?" he asked, his voice slightly breathless.

"Pretty much how it looks when it's shooting through the sky, just shooting towards the ground," Emma shrugged. "It splashes, though. And it's _loud_."

Another clap of thunder shook the apartment walls, as if proving her point. Everyone jumped that time. After a round of embarrassed chuckles, Emma turned Henry's question on her parents. "What about you two? What's the worst storm you've ever experienced?"

"None as exciting as yours, I'm afraid," Snow replied as she poured sugar and cocoa powder into a pot and added boiling water. "I will say, though, that hearing thunder through the walls of a cave is ten times worse than hearing it through the ceiling."

"How come?" Henry asked, his brow knit in a frown.

"Echoes." She hid a smile when her grandson wrinkled his nose at the thought of echoing thunder.

"You think that's bad, try storms on a farm," David chuckled. "The animals get skittish. Rounding them up to get them all to safety can be tricky and keeping them calm is pretty much an impossibility."

"So you never had time to be afraid," Emma smirked.

"Exactly," he replied with a gentle smile at his daughter. "We did have a tree on the farm get struck by lightning once. Split it right down the middle."

Emma's eyebrows shot to the ceiling while Henry's jaw dropped open in shock. "Was everyone okay?" he asked worriedly.

"We were fine," David assured him. "The tree was nowhere near the house or any of the animals. We did hear the strike, though. As Emma said, the strikes are loud."

"Louder than that?" Henry asked over a roll of thunder.

"Much louder," David said while Emma nodded in agreement.

Henry let out a soft breath of relief. David and Emma exchanged an amused glance over his head.

Snow was at the point in her preparation where she had to focus on the cocoa to ensure she didn't burn it. She still kept half an ear on the conversation in the living area, basking in the sounds of her family just being together. She could hear the sheer exhaustion in Emma's voice and, for a brief moment, felt sorry for going upstairs and essentially dragging her out of bed. The excitement in Henry's voice and the love and tenderness in Charming's made her glad she'd gone upstairs. Sometimes a middle of the night family adventure was a good thing.

She could also hear the slight hint of fear lingering in Henry's voice. Though that little boy would never admit it, this storm was indeed scaring him. David and Emma had the right idea, then, by trying to make conversation to take his mind off of it and providing him with their own experiences to let him know that the storm was just a storm and everything would be fine.

It took her a few minutes to notice that she could no longer hear Emma. She took her eye off the hot chocolate just long enough to see Emma's eyelids fluttering and Henry gently nudging her foot with his in an effort to keep her awake. Snow frowned thoughtfully as she returned her attention to the cocoa. Apparently they needed to come up with some kind of activity before they lost Emma for good.

But what could they do? The fact that it was the middle of the night left out any kind of rowdy activity, mostly out of consideration for the neighbors but also because they were going to have to go back to sleep at some point tonight and giving everyone a second wind was not on her agenda. Simple conversation was clearly too tame, and if she put on a movie, Emma – and probably Charming, depending on how comfortable he could get in that chair – would be sound asleep in minutes.

Snow removed the finished cocoa from the heat and set it aside to cool a little. The air in the apartment smelled comfortingly like the drink. As she put the lid back on the sugar container, the answer came to her. A quick peek into the cabinets proved she had everything she needed already on hand. Grinning to herself, she set the oven to preheat before pouring out four mugs of cocoa.

She stuck a cinnamon stick in each mug, arranged the mugs on a tray, and carried the whole thing into the living room. She handed Henry and Charming their mugs before gently pressing Emma's into her hands. Her daughter blearily blinked her eyes open but still managed a grateful smile as she gripped the mug. Snow returned her smile as she took a seat next to her husband. "Drink up, everyone," she instructed as she brought her own mug to her lips. "When we're done here, we're making cookies."

From the way Henry's eyes lit up, it was obvious he was thinking that despite the storm, being up in the middle of the night was the best thing ever. David shot his wife a grin but Emma just stared at her, her jaw hanging open in shock. "You are aware that it's like, one-thirty in the morning, right?"

"I am," Snow replied, nonchalantly sipping her cocoa.

"Who the hell bakes cookies at one-thirty in the morning?"

"Apparently, we do," David teased.

Emma rolled her eyes and muttered something under her breath that no one caught.

Henry hid a giggle behind his mug at his mom's grouchiness while Snow and David exchanged an amused grin. "So," Henry asked, his eyes sparkling in excitement, "what kind of cookies are we making?"


	3. Chapter 3

So far, Emma had grouchily – and, Snow had to admit, perhaps wisely – stayed out of the great cookie debate, choosing instead to focus on sipping her cocoa. All she'd offered by way of a suggestion was a shrug and a murmur of, "Whatever you guys decide is fine with me. All I really want to do is sleep."

Snow idly wondered if she was getting a glimpse of how her daughter would have behaved as a teenager in the midst of a "family time is lame" phase.

Unfortunately for Emma, the family now needed her to act as a tie-breaker. "So, to recap," Snow said, amusement clear as a bell in her tone, "we've got one vote apiece for sugar cookies, chocolate chip cookies, and snickerdoodles." She looked over at her daughter, who was studiously picking at a chip in her nail polish and trying very hard to show no interest whatsoever in the conversation. "You get to cast the deciding vote, Emma. What kind of cookies should we bake?"

A sigh escaped Emma's lips as she almost imperceptibly rolled her eyes. _No doubt about it_, Snow thought, biting her lip to hide her grin, _her teenage snits would have been the death of me_.

After a moment, though, Emma seemed to get over her annoyance. She playfully narrowed her eyes at her mother, then pretended to think it over. "Hmm, how about … peanut butter?"

Snow and David both chuckled. "That wasn't one of the options," Henry oh so helpfully pointed out, thereby completely missing his mother's joke.

"I know," Emma told him. "I was just teasing. For real, though, if I have to decide, I'm voting for snickerdoodles."

"Yes!" Henry whispered, pumping a little fist in the air. The snickerdoodles were his idea, mostly because he liked saying "snickerdoodle."

"Aww, come on," David teased, though there was a tinge of real disappointment in his tone. He'd wanted chocolate chip, though Snow suspected he'd done so out of a desire to snack on the chocolate chips as they baked more than a desire to eat the cookies. "Why snickerdoodles?"

"Because, if I remember correctly, the dough has to sit for a little while before we roll it in the cinnamon and sugar." She darted her gaze to her mother for confirmation. When Snow nodded, a smug grin pulled at Emma's mouth. "I'll bake snickerdoodles with you if I get to lie down during the waiting time."

"Deal," Snow replied without a moment's hesitation.

"But Gramma!" Henry started, his voice verging on a whine.

In an effort to head this argument off at the pass, Snow gave her grandson a surreptitious wink. A tiny smile of comprehension curled on his lips; he understood now that his grandmother had something up her sleeve.

Not wanting to clue Emma into that fact that Snow was up to something, though, Henry heaved a sigh, as if giving in to Emma's demand. "Okay."

"Good," Emma said, nodding before putting her mug to her lips and swallowing the rest of her cocoa.

Snow exchanged a grin with her husband, who also seemed to have cottoned onto her plan. It was nothing sneaky, and it didn't require any underhanded tactics. It was barely even a plan! She simply knew that once Emma got up and moving, both her grogginess and her crankiness would fade.

Everyone was quiet as they finished their cocoa, the only sounds being the beeping of the stove when it came up to temperature and the ever-present rumbling of thunder. One by one, Snow gathered their empty mugs. When she had all four in her possession, she stood, carried them to the sink, and then began pulling the ingredients for the snickerdoodles out of the cabinet.

Barely a minute later, Henry's excited voice floated to her from somewhere in the vicinity of the counter behind her. "I know you probably know how to do this off the top of your head, Gramma, but do you have the recipe in a cookbook somewhere? I want to see if I can follow it."

"I'm sure I do," Snow replied, turning to set the flour and baking soda on the counter. She smiled at her grandson, giving a slight nod towards her cookbook shelf. "I had to learn how to make them somehow, and it definitely wasn't in the Enchanted Forest. Feel free to poke around."

"Thanks!" Henry dashed over to the shelf with such exuberance that Snow was beginning to question the wisdom of making sugary treats at quarter of two in the morning.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Charming hold out a hand to their daughter to help her off the couch. A tender smile curled on her lips when Emma grabbed her father's hand and allowed him to pull her to her feet.

In just a few minutes, the kitchen had become baking central. As Snow had figured, Emma started to come around as soon as she was given something to do, tasks like softening the butter or measuring out the sugar.

Henry, who'd been tasked with mixing the dry ingredients according to the recipe in Snow's cookbook, blew a lock of hair off his forehead, frustrated. "How am I supposed to measure out three-quarters of a cup of flour? There's no three-quarter-cup measuring thingy."

"Use the half-cup and the one-quarter," Emma instructed as she tapped an egg on the side of her bowl. She looked up at her mother, the corners of her mouth turned up in a wry smile. "Fractions aren't part of Storybrooke's math curriculum?"

David snorted in amusement as he mixed the cinnamon and sugar together for the topping.

"We were just starting to ease into fractions when _someone_ broke the curse," Snow retorted dryly, arching a single eyebrow at her daughter. "Also, you might want to watch what you're doing when you're cracking eggs. You got shell in the bowl."

Emma examined the contents of her bowl and, sure enough, there was a sliver of shell staring up at her from the white of the egg. A soft sigh escaped her lips as she fished the shell out with her index finger. "Eh, it's all right," she said, giving her son a wink. "Who needs fractions anyway? And mixed numbers? They're a bitch."

The part of Snow that had been a teacher for twenty-eight years was all set to launch into a diatribe about how fractions were an extremely important part of life, as evidenced by Henry having to ask how to measure out three-quarters of a cup of flour. Snow managed to silence that part of herself, however, when she realized that Emma was trying to get her going. Instead, she simply sighed and told Emma she missed a piece of shell.

Emma playfully rolled her eyes in her mother's direction before refocusing her attention on the task at hand, namely getting the wet ingredients blended – and free of egg shell.

As Snow rooted through the cabinet for the electric mixer, the lights flickered. All activity in the room came to a halt. "I'm not falling asleep standing here, am I?" Emma asked after a beat. "The lights just flickered, right?"

"No, you're not," David chuckled. "The lights did flicker, which doesn't exactly bode well."

"What if the power goes out before we can finish the cookies?" Henry asked with a pout.

_That _was something Snow hadn't taken into consideration when she'd suggested this idea. If they lost power before they could bake the cookies, they would have to toss the dough. They wouldn't be able to use the oven without power, and they couldn't store the dough in the fridge for later if the fridge didn't work. Judging by the disappointed look on his face, Henry had made that logical leap as well.

Snow hefted the mixer onto the counter and shot her grandson a light, teasing grin. "We'll just have to hurry, then, won't we?"

The disappointment faded as Henry smiled, clearly loving the added element of a race to beat the potential loss of power. He measured out the baking soda, salt, and cream of tartar and eagerly consulted the recipe for the next step. "I have to add my stuff to Mom's stuff now," he announced, turning to face his mother and grandmother.

"And you have to do it slowly," Snow instructed. The lights flickered a second time, causing Charming and Emma to exchange a troubled glance. _Please just last a little bit longer_, Snow silently begged.

It hit her a moment later how ridiculous it was to be praying to the power gods for just enough time to bake cookies.

As she watched Henry add the dry ingredients, she kept half an eye on her husband and daughter, who were now standing on the opposite side of the island since they'd completed their tasks. "So," David whispered to Emma, "did you ever think that you would be baking snickerdoodles at two in the morning?"

"I can't say as though I did," Emma replied, smirking a little.

The lights flickered a third time as a loud crash of thunder shook the apartment walls. Startled, Henry dropped his bowl. Most of the contents landed in the mixing bowl, far too much for the mixer to handle all at once. A cloud of flour rose up from the bowl, making Snow and Henry cry out and leap back in surprise.

David and Emma tried very hard not to laugh.

"Is that why I was supposed to add it in slowly?" Henry asked sheepishly.

"Yes," Snow laughed, brushing flour from Henry's nose. "That's exactly why."

"I think we should start getting out the flashlights and batteries," Emma spoke up somewhat nervously. Truth be told, with the storm as close as it was, as strong as it was, she was surprised the power had lasted this long.

"Couldn't hurt," David agreed. "You two finish up the cookie dough. We'll dig out the flashlights, just in case."

Snow nodded, most of her attention on the dough. The mixer had finally caught up with Henry's accidental torrent of flour.

By the time Emma returned with two flashlights in one hand and a package of batteries in the other, the flour had incorporated nicely. Snow turned the mixer off, removed the beaters, and handed them over to Henry. It wasn't quite the same as if they'd made a cake or brownies but his eyes lit up anyway.

Emma rolled her eyes as she watched her son swipe his finger down a dough-caked beater. "Just what he needs," she murmured, glancing at the clock. "Pure sugar at two in the morning."

Henry beamed.

Snow smiled at her as she stowed the dough in the fridge. She should have really let it sit for an hour or so but she was reminded as the lights flickered again that they didn't have that kind of time. Chilling it for a few minutes would have to do.

"David's poking around in the closet for the camping lanterns." Emma handed her mother a flashlight with freshly changed batteries. Snow's hand brushed Emma's when she took the flashlight from her, making them both smile.

"What happens if the dough doesn't sit long enough?" Emma asked, mostly to take the attention off the accidental moment of affection.

"The cookies will be a little flat," Snow replied, going right along with her.

"But they'll still taste the same?"

"They should, yes."

Emma smiled somewhat sheepishly. "So it'll be like when I tried to make fudge."

Snow raised her eyebrows at her daughter. "You made fudge?"

"_Tried _to make fudge. It didn't set up right." A light flush of pink colored Emma's cheeks. "It tasted perfectly fine but I, um, sort of had to eat it with a spoon."

"That sounds awesome!" Henry exclaimed. "I'd like to eat fudge with a spoon."

At that, both Snow and Emma laughed. "You must not have cooked it long enough," Snow said to her daughter.

Emma shrugged. "Probably. I ended up throwing it away because I couldn't serve it like that."

"When was this?"

"After Graham," she softly admitted. "I couldn't sleep one night, so I tried to take a page out of Mary Margaret Blanchard's book. It didn't work out all that well for me."

Snow's smile grew kinder and more gentle as she comfortingly ran her hand up and down her daughter's back. When David came around the corner carrying the camping lanterns, Emma tensed, causing Snow to remove her hand in response. Some things, she noted sadly, Emma still didn't like to talk about in front of her father, and Graham was one of them.

"Which recipe did you use?" Snow asked, steering the conversation back to Emma's fudge mishap rather than the reason she'd made the fudge in the first place.

"The one on the back of the Fluff jar," Emma replied. She looked her mother in the eye, her smile growing sardonic. "You know, the one that's called Never-Fail Fudge?"

"But you failed," Henry spoke up innocently.

Emma smirked. "Yes I did."

Snow and David met each other's eyes and smiled, both thinking the same thing: o_nly Emma_.


	4. Chapter 4

It seemed as though praying to the power gods only worked to a point. Just as Snow slipped the last cookie sheet into the oven, the lights flickered twice before staying off. Everyone in the room held a collective breath, waiting for the sudden wash of darkness to be a simple blip in the power supply. When the lights didn't come back on after a few seconds, Emma groaned, "Really?"

"Aw, man!" That one was from Henry.

Snow heard David swallow a snicker as Emma fumbled for a flashlight. She didn't even have to see him to imagine the indulgent grin that was surely on his face. For two people who grew up in a land without electricity, losing power was not the be-all, end-all it was for Henry and Emma.

Emma clicked the flashlight on and stood it on its end on the counter in an effort to give the room a bit of light. Not one to be outdone, David lifted a camping lantern into place on the counter. The illumination from the lantern swallowed the weak beam coming from the flashlight. "Show-off," Emma teasingly muttered while gently nudging her father's shoulder with hers.

A touched smile lit David's face at the contact, though he quickly schooled his features when he met his daughter's gaze. Both he and Snow had swiftly learned that looking at Emma with too much love and affection made her uncomfortable. They were trying to take things slowly and trying to let her set the pace, even though they wanted nothing more than to smother her with all the comfort and affection they should have been able to give her from birth.

Twenty-eight years worth of hugs and kisses and touches was a lot to hold in, but they did it because anything more would have been too overwhelming for their baby.

Snow heaved a sigh that was equal parts longing for the family time she missed and exasperation over the power choosing that exact moment to finally die as she pulled the cookie sheet back out of the oven. "At least we got most of the cookies baked," she said, setting the sheet down on the burners and staring down at the uncooked dough balls.

What on earth was she going to do with them? She couldn't cook them now, and, depending on how long the power was out, she wouldn't be able to store them.

"We have more snickerdoodles than we know what to do with," Emma reminded her as she swiped a cookie off the cooling rack.

Emma's eyes closed involuntarily as she bit into the still-warm cookie, which made Snow grin. "I take it they're good?"

"They're delicious," Emma agreed after she'd swallowed. "We did a good job."

Henry reached his hand out to take a cookie as well. Before he could bite into it, his eyes lit up. Snow knew that look; it was his there-will-be-mischief look. "Say," he said, trying hard to sound nonchalant, "how long do you figure it'll be before the ice cream in the freezer starts to melt?"

"Don't even think about it, kid," Emma muttered, sliding a plate over to him to catch his crumbs. "It's bad enough that we're having cookies at this hour of the morning. We're not eating ice cream, too."

The boy's lower lip stuck out in a pout even as he piled the small plate with cookies. "You're not helping your case, Henry," Snow whispered to him.

"She's not going to let me have the ice cream anyway," he shrugged. "I might as well take as many cookies as I want."

The comment must have forced Emma's maternal side to the surface because she reached over and removed four cookies from her son's plate, leaving him with two. He looked up at her with another pout, a dress rehearsal for the Stage One Puppy Dog Eyes.

Apparently, the fact that it was two-thirty in the morning during a power outage and a thunderstorm provided the motivation Emma needed to finally learn how to resist the Puppy Dog Eyes. "I think three cookies is more than plenty. I'm already up in the middle of the night due to the storm. I would rather not add being up in the middle of the night because my kid is sick from eating too many snickerdoodles to that list. The cookies will still be here tomorrow." She paused. "Later on today. Whatever."

Emma's continued confusion over whether to count Sunday as today or tomorrow made her entire family snicker.

"I'm glad I could amuse you all," she sighed as she grabbed both her flashlight and another cookie before heading back to the sofa. "Since the power's out now, can we please go back to bed?"

"Aw, this is perfect scary story weather!" Henry exclaimed. He followed her to the couch, nestling next to her before she had a chance to lie down. Snow and David exchanged a grin in the lantern light.

Emma raised her eyebrows in disbelief. The kid had woken her from a sound sleep because he was afraid of the storm, and now he wanted to tell scary stories? Was he nuts? "The last time we told scary stories, it didn't turn out very well," she reminded him. "I do want to be able to go back to sleep at some point tonight, remember."

Before Snow could even think an activity that would wind Henry down enough to go back to bed, Henry exclaimed, "We could play Hot and Cold! You know, one of us hides something and everyone else has to go look for it and then whoever finds it gets to hide it for the next round."

"It's dark," Emma said, pointing out the obvious. Flashes of lightning illuminated the room in fits and starts, causing Emma to amend her statement. "It's mostly dark."

"That just means it'll be that much harder. Please, Mom? Please?"

Emma glanced over at her parents, who had been watching the entire discussion with amused smiles on their faces. "You two want to help me out a little bit here?" When they exchanged a glance, Emma pouted at them.

"Oh, that was low," David laughed. "You just gave us your own version of Henry's Puppy Dog Eyes."

She shrugged, a smirk pulling at her lips. "If I have to be subjected to it, so do you."

"How about we limit it to a couple of rounds?" Snow suggested in an effort to find a compromise. Henry clearly wasn't ready to go back to bed yet but Emma had been ready from the second she set foot downstairs.

Mother and son glanced at each other, each trying to determine how the other felt about the compromise. When Henry gave her a little nod, Emma smiled. "Okay. I do have one ground rule, though: no hiding the object inside something. We're going to hide it in plain view because like I said, it's dark. It's going to be hard enough to find as it is."

"Okay!" Henry beamed, obviously thrilled that his mother was allowing him to play a hiding game in the middle of the night. "The question now is, what are we hiding?"

Emma shrugged, heaving a sigh and slumping against the back of the sofa. Snow smiled; clearly, this activity at this time of the morning required far too much decision-making for her daughter. In an effort to take the pressure off just a little, Snow glanced around the apartment. They needed something small enough to hide but big enough to be spotted in the low illumination of a flashlight.

As she glanced at the fridge, a magnet on the front of it caught her eye. She met David's gaze, who must have seen the same thing because he grinned at her. With a smirk of her own, she stepped over to the fridge and removed the magnet.

Snow had purchased it herself – more as a joke than anything – not long after Emma had finally put two and two together enough to realize that she was, by all rights, a royal. No one had spoken of it … not in front of Emma, at least. Privately, they'd all shared a laugh, and Henry had even declared it the most perfect fridge magnet in all of Storybrooke.

Emma hadn't said a word about it, though Snow knew she'd seen it. The rectangular ceramic piece featured a cartoon of a little blonde girl clad in a long, flowing blue dress. A small tiara sat on her head, and her hands were clasped in front of her as she smiled, the very picture of innocence. Above the drawing of the girl were the words, "Because I'm the princess, that's why."

Snow called Emma's name before gently tossing her the magnet. Emma caught it and, when she got a good look at what she now held in her hand, turned a weary look on her mother. "Very funny."

Henry and David both choked back a laugh.

"But hey, if you want to hide this, it's fine with me," Emma continued, smirking. "I make no promises that I won't conveniently forget where I hid it, though."

"Well, in that case," David said, snatching the magnet from his unsuspecting daughter's hand, "Henry gets to hide it first."

"Fine," Emma huffed, playfully crossing her arms over her chest and pretending to sulk.

"All right!" Henry exclaimed. He vacated his seat and grinned when Snow took his place and David sat down on Emma's other side, squeezing her in the middle.

Emma tensed up for a brief moment at the unexpected contact but soon relaxed and gently nudged Snow's hip with hers, a silent instruction to scoot over a little so they could all fit. Snow met her husband's gaze over their baby's head, and they both smiled at each other.

Once everyone was situated, Henry instructed his mother and grandparents to close their eyes. "Gladly," Emma murmured under her breath. Snow elbowed her lightly in the ribs, causing Emma to open one eye and grin at her.

Snow snickered, taking Emma's hand in her own before she, too, shut her eyes.

For a long moment, all was quiet. Even the thunder seemed to have abated a bit, which Snow took as a good sign. Maybe the storm was finally moving on and away from Storybrooke.

_Or not_, she thought when a sudden clap of thunder startled both her and Emma.

"You may now open your eyes," Henry said happily. Snow did not at all mistake the tiny whimper that came from Emma's direction. She squeezed Emma's hand, her way of telling her daughter that she just had to get through a couple of rounds of Hot and Cold and then she could go back to bed.

She supposed Emma got the message because she squeezed back. Smiling, Snow opened her eyes to find Henry standing in the exact same spot as before, only this time there was a sly grin on his face. The adults stood and began working their way around the small apartment, flashlight beams crisscrossing the dark space.

"You're all freezing," Henry told them after a moment.

David and Emma exchanged a frown. Everyone was in opposite corners of the downstairs area; how could they all be cold?

As he watched his family search the apartment, Henry sat down at the kitchen table. He crossed his hands in front of him and smiled smugly at the stumped expressions on their faces.

No matter where they went, he told them they were cold. Emma even peeked into the cookie jar, despite the prohibition against hiding the magnet inside something.

As Emma walked past the table on her way to check her parents' room, Henry finally said something different. "Mom, you're warm."

Snow and David froze in their tracks, as did Emma. She backed up a step, arching a questioning eyebrow at her son. He grinned at her. "Now you're just a little bit warmer."

What on earth? Snow stood back and watched as David crouched down next to Emma, swinging his flashlight over the seats of the chairs. Nothing. "You're getting colder, Gramps," Henry teased.

All of a sudden, comprehension flooded Emma's features. She took a couple steps towards Henry, who was trying very hard to stifle his mischievous giggles. "Now you're scorching hot."

Throughout it all, Henry hadn't moved a muscle. It was when Emma handed her flashlight to her father and reached for her son's hands that Snow finally got it.

Henry's right hand was covering his left, which was balled up into a fist. He could no longer hold in his laughter as Emma pried the magnet from his fist. "I hope that doesn't count as hiding it in something," he told her when he finally caught his breath. "I just couldn't resist."

Emma heaved a faux put-upon sigh as she caught her mother's gaze. "Whose bright idea was it to let him play this game?"

"I do believe it was yours," Snow reminded her with a smile.

"It was, wasn't it? Damn."


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note:** This is perhaps the most sticky sweet thing I've ever written. As always, I apologize for none of it. ;)

* * *

After three rounds of Hot and Cold, Emma finally hit the wall. She'd grown far too comfortable on the sofa while waiting for her father to hide the magnet, despite being squeezed in between her mother and son. When David called for his family to start searching, Emma shook her head with a soft whimper. "I can't," she whined, only sort of exaggerating. "You guys can play to your hearts' content but please leave me out of it."

She sounded so pathetic that no one had the heart to protest. Smiling gently, Snow brushed an errant lock of hair off her baby's forehead. "I think the games are over for tonight," she said, her voice soft.

Emma smiled back in weary gratitude.

David plucked the magnet from its hidden perch atop August's "medieval chic" deadbolt and replaced it on the fridge. Then he carried the lantern over to the living area. "I think the storm's starting to die down," he said, nudging Henry so he could sit on the couch with his family.

Henry stood but before he could take a seat on the floor, David wrapped his hands around the boy's waist and settled him on his lap. Despite the fact that he was getting a bit too big for comfortably sitting on an adult's lap, Henry beamed.

"Don't ever say that," Emma informed her father in a cautious tone. "Whenever someone says something like that about a storm, it has a tendency to come back with a vengeance."

As if to prove her point, a flash of lightning brightened the room. The clap of thunder followed barely a second later. "See what I mean?" she sighed.

Snow and David exchanged a smirk over their daughter's head. She reached across Emma's lap for his hand. He complied but they'd barely felt the warmth of each other's hands before Emma said, "Okay, ew."

Stifling chuckles, David and Snow released hands.

"Aw, I think it's cute," Henry teased.

"It's not cute," Emma replied, wrinkling her nose. "It's weird."

"Out of everything that you could possibly think is weird about our family situation, the two of us holding hands is what you're having trouble with?" David asked, swallowing a laugh.

"No, the whole thing is most definitely insane. That said, you guys holding hands is … I don't even know. It's just weird."

Everyone snickered but another clap of thunder quickly sobered the group. Henry's gaze traveled to the ceiling, as though he could see the thunder rumbling overhead. "The storm has to be over soon, though, don't you think?" he asked, his little voice shaking. "It's been going for a really long time."

"It has, hasn't it? You woke me up at, what, one?" Emma leaned her head back against the sofa so she could see the wall clock past her father and son. "Ugh, it's almost three."

"And it was going for a while before I woke you up."

"It should be over soon," David assured him.

Henry looked unconvinced. Snow couldn't really blame him; it certainly neither looked nor sounded like the storm had any intention of ending any time soon.

She needed to come up with something else to do that would keep Henry's mind occupied while also winding him down enough to go back to bed, but what? She'd been an elementary school teacher for twenty-eight years, for crying out loud. Surely there was something she could pull out of her mental bag of tricks.

A moment later, it came to her. "For our next activity, we have to do a little storytelling."

Emma whimpered without lifting her head. Snow took her hand and squeezed, her own silent way of telling Emma to trust her. For their part, Henry looked both intrigued and excited while David simply arched an eyebrow at her. "The rules of the game are quite simple," she continued, smiling at her husband and grandson. "One person makes up as much of a story as he or she wants and then passes the story off to someone else to continue. That person has to add to it and pass it off, and so on."

"We're going to be left with a story that doesn't make any kind of sense," Emma pointed out.

"That's the point. You don't have to join in if you don't want. I know you're tired."

The look of sheer relief that crossed poor Emma's face proved that tired was an understatement. "Thanks. I'll listen, though."

"You should start, Gramma," Henry said excitedly.

With a gentle grin at her grandson, Snow started to release Emma's hand. It took both her and Emma by surprise when Emma tightened her grip, refusing to let go. Snow didn't call attention to the gesture but she couldn't stop the touched smile that lit her face. "Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there was a beautiful young princess–"

"Named Emma," Henry teasingly broke in.

Emma groaned. "Can we not tell princess stories, please?"

In deference to her daughter's wishes, Snow took a moment to think of another plotline. Then she started again, this time weaving a tale about a young boy who was trying to convince his mother to get him a puppy.

"Don't even think about it," Emma teased before her son could get out a single word. She slouched a little as she made herself comfortable.

"I wasn't," he huffed, though Snow thought she detected a tiny bit of disappointment in his tone.

Hiding a smile, Snow continued her story. The boy asked his mother for all manner of other animals to keep as pets in an effort to make a puppy seem like a reasonable request. She passed the story off to David just after the mother vetoed the iguana.

Not one to be content with real-world situations, David added, "So then the boy asked for a dinosaur."

Henry giggled, clearly loving the visual of a small boy happily walking a dinosaur on a leash down the sidewalk, and Emma snorted in amusement. Since his plot twist was being well-received, David kept it up with a rather funny conversation between the mother and son over proper dinosaur care.

After the mother said no to the dinosaur, the boy asked for a dragon. Snow glanced over at Emma to gauge her reaction, but she didn't seem to have heard: her eyes were closed. Smiling softly, she ran her thumb up and down the back of Emma's hand, hoping to soothe her to sleep.

The story passed between husband and wife a few more times, with Henry chiming in with details or outlandish animals every so often. By the time they reached the end, the boy had asked for, among other things, a zebra, a koala bear, and the Loch Ness Monster.

"The boy's mother had finally had enough," Snow said with a glance at her grandson, whose eyelids had begun to droop somewhere between the penguin and the water buffalo. His eyes were closed now, his breathing deep and even. An ending to the story was no longer necessary, but for the sake of completeness, Snow gave it one anyway. "She took the boy to the animal shelter to pick out a puppy, and they lived happily ever after."

David glanced from his grandson, curled up in his lap, to his daughter, whose head had come to rest on her mother's shoulder. Finally locking eyes with his wife, he gave her an amused smile. "It appears we have a bit of a problem."

"It appears we do," she agreed, a smile of her own pulling at her lips.

"I can carry him into our room, and we could just take the upstairs for the rest of the night."

Snow shook her head. "We're not going to be able to move Emma, and if we wake her now, she'll kill us. I would say just put Henry in our room and let her take the couch but I'm afraid she'll panic if she wakes up and doesn't know where he is."

"So, what, you want to leave them both out here, foot to foot? It won't be comfortable for either of them."

"It's pretty much our only option, unless you want to wake her just to send her to bed."

The mere thought of the crankiness that would ensue if David woke Emma just to send her to bed was apparently enough to get him to agree to Snow's plan. He shifted on the sofa, lifting Henry off his lap and lying him against the pillow Emma had brought down at the beginning of the night. While he was seeing to Henry, Snow slipped her hand free from Emma's and extricated herself carefully. She tiptoed upstairs and grabbed the extra pillow from Emma's bed.

And there, folded up under the pillow, was Emma's baby blanket.

From the second Snow remembered who she really was, she had longed for the opportunity to tuck her daughter in with her baby blanket, just as she should have been able to do countless times throughout Emma's childhood. Without a second thought, she picked up the blanket as well.

She was finally going to get her chance tonight, Emma's mood in the morning when she found out be damned.

By the time she returned downstairs, David had gotten Henry tucked in. After whispering a good night to her grandson and giving him a kiss on the top of his head, she moved over to Emma. She propped the pillow up against the arm of the sofa, rested her hands on her daughter's shoulders, and gently guided her towards the pillow.

Emma took over in her sleep, curling up on her side as she tucked her hands under the pillow. With a tender smile, Snow spread the blanket over her. She noted with a pang of longing that it barely covered her shoulders now.

"Is that ..." David whispered, startling Snow.

She turned her head and saw her husband staring down at the blanket, his eyes wide as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing. He reached out and almost hesitantly grabbed a corner, running a length of deep purple satin ribbon between his thumb and forefinger. "It is," Snow answered in a whisper. "She kept it all these years."

David had to blink back the tears in his eyes. His baby girl hadn't given up on them, even though no one would have blamed her if she had. She'd kept her one connection to her parents and she'd kept it close. The yarn was slightly frayed, indicating use, and it was worn thin in a couple different places. Were those the spots she used to hold when she was little?

The emotion was becoming too much for him, so he tore his gaze away from the soft white yarn, focusing instead on spreading the blanket covering Henry out over Emma as well. He touched her baby blanket one final time before gently pressing a kiss to her temple.

Emma's eyes fluttered open just long enough for her to catch a glimpse of her father. "Love you," she murmured, her voice barely audible, her eyes already closing again.

David turned to Snow with wide eyes, looking for confirmation that she'd heard it, too. She had, and she had to swallow the lump in her throat as she nodded to her husband. "I love you, too, princess," he whispered back to her, his voice trembling with emotion.

Blinking back the tears in her eyes, Snow crouched down next to the sofa to say her own good nights. When she tucked a lock of hair behind Emma's ear, a tiny smile pulled at Emma's lips. She didn't open her eyes this time but her whisper was clear as day. "Love you, too."

Tears leaped into Snow's eyes. The fact that a fully awake Emma would never have been that free with her affection – those damn walls of hers – didn't diminish the sentiment any. Snow ran her thumb over Emma's cheek and murmured, "I love you, baby. More than you will ever know."


	6. Chapter 6

Henry slowly became aware of two things. One was that the world on the other side of his eyelids was rather bright, certainly bright enough to make him not want to open his eyes just yet. The other was that there was something digging into his back, something that was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Still, he tried to ignore it and go back to sleep, if only to avoid dealing with the brightness for the next little while.

Then the thing digging into his back moved. Henry's eyes snapped open.

The world was indeed impossibly bright. He blinked a couple times, then frowned in confusion when the downstairs of the apartment filled his field of vision. Why the heck had he slept downstairs?

All of a sudden, the memories came flooding back: the thunderstorm, waking his mom up, and going downstairs with his whole family to wait it out. He must have fallen asleep down here. Oops.

Henry sat up a little bit and looked around. Judging from the brightness of the room, the thunderstorm had blown over hours ago. The craziness of the previous night was nothing more than a bad memory now. Well, the storm itself was a bad memory. The time he'd spent with his family during the storm? That was awesome.

The object behind him moved again, just a twitch but it was enough to remind him of the reason he'd woken up in the first place. He glanced almost hesitantly over to his side but what he saw made him smile.

Emma was lying on her back at the other end of the sofa, sound asleep and snoring lightly. One leg was bent up towards her uncomfortably to make room for Henry and the other was stretched out along the back edge of the couch cushions. His smile grew a little wider when he realized that the object that had been pressing into his back was her foot. They both must have fallen asleep out here. Double oops.

He went to place his feet on the floor and stepped right onto a blanket that must have been covering either one or both of them during the night. One of them had clearly kicked it off, and if he had to place bets, he would guess Emma. She could be a restless sleeper sometimes, especially if she was uncomfortable. He picked up the blanket and was about to spread it over his mom when something white under her shoulder caught his eye.

It took him a moment to figure out what it was: her baby blanket. Judging from its position underneath her now, he figured it had to have been draped over her shoulders at one point. That was weird, though. He knew she kept it under her pillow but he couldn't recall ever seeing her taking it out and using it. Had his grandparents tucked her in with it? If so, he kind of wished he'd been awake to see that.

Speaking of, where on earth were his grandparents?

Feeling suddenly energized in the wake of having a new mission to accomplish (namely, finding his grandparents), he pushed himself off the sofa. He draped the fallen blanket over his mom, being careful not to wake her. As he turned around, he caught the wall clock out of the corner of his eye and had to do a double-take. It was almost ten?! He'd _never_ slept this late in his whole life, not even when he was sick!

Shaking off his shock and getting back to the mission at hand, Henry tiptoed over to his grandparents' room. A quick peek in proved that they were sleeping peacefully as well. He was the only one up, which pretty much never happened.

And suddenly, he got an idea. With a smile, he walked the few steps to the kitchen area.

The only real practice he'd had with making breakfast mainly involved pouring cereal into a bowl but his gramma had been showing him how to cook on the mornings he made it downstairs early enough. Scrambled eggs weren't that hard and he was pretty sure he could handle frying up some bacon. Oh, and toast; toast was easy. The only sticking point he could see were the home fries. He'd watched her a couple of times but she hadn't had the chance to teach him properly yet.

Maybe he could wing it.

He put two frying pans on the stove before pulling the eggs and bacon out of the fridge. The princess magnet caught his eye as the door closed. His grandfather had put it back up crooked after the game last night. With a soft smile, Henry reached up and straightened it. He loved that thing, if only because he liked to believe his mom would have looked exactly like the little princess on the magnet if she'd grown up in the castle the way she was supposed to. The cartoon girl even had green eyes! It couldn't have been more perfect even if it had been made to look like her on purpose.

After getting everything set on the counter, Henry cracked the eggs into a bowl and whisked them together until they had turned into a pale yellow liquid. Eggs were scrambled, bacon was on deck, bread for toast was within reach. The only things he needed now were the potatoes, which would be fine if only he knew where Snow kept the potatoes.

It took a couple of minutes but he found them. He got out the cutting board, set the potatoes in the middle, and almost guiltily reached for a knife – one of the really sharp ones that no one ever let him touch. Just as he was about to cut into the first potato, the knife was gently plucked from his hand. "Henry, what on earth are you doing?"

Startled, he whirled around to find his grandmother standing behind him. "I was trying to make breakfast," he sheepishly replied, turning the end of the statement up as if asking a question.

"You were planning to eat all of this by yourself?"

"No, I was going to make enough for everybody."

A tender smile pulled at Snow's lips. "That's very sweet of you, honey, but you shouldn't be cubing potatoes by yourself. Your mother has even cut her finger with this knife more than once." She winked, and he smiled back. "I take it you wanted to make home fries?"

He nodded.

"Do you want me to show you how?"

"Yes, please," he replied with a grin.

Snow smiled at him as she pulled out a stock pot and let it fill at the sink. After she hefted the pot on the stove to boil, she turned to switch on the coffeemaker and then began cubing up the potatoes.

Henry watched her with his jaw hanging open slightly in awe. The multitasking aspect of cooking was the part he had difficulty with. Knowing how to time everything just right so that all the various elements finished cooking at the same time, not forgetting about one thing while working on another … he had no idea how his grandmother managed. _Practice_, he figured. _Practice and a lot of patience._

Which was probably why his mom had a hard time in the kitchen, save for grilled cheese sandwiches. Patience was not one of her strong suits.

Speaking of …

"You think we should wake Mom and Gramps up?" Henry asked as Snow dumped the cubed potatoes into the now boiling water.

"We won't have to," she said with a wink as she began dicing an onion.

"Why not?"

"You'll see."

It wasn't until she got down to the nitty-gritty that Henry understood what she'd meant. As breakfast began to come together, a variety of delicious smells filled the apartment. The aroma of sauteing onion mixed with that of frying bacon and brewing coffee. Before long, his grandfather sleepily padded out of the bedroom, following the scent as if on auto-pilot. "I really hope that's breakfast I smell," he said, giving his wife a quick peck on the cheek.

Almost involuntarily, Henry glanced over at his mother. The aromas were waking her up as well, but she seemed to be trying to fight it so she hadn't seen her parents' public display of affection.

"Of course it's breakfast you smell," Snow said, smiling up at her husband. "Will you set the table, please? Henry and I are in the middle of a How To Make Home Fries cooking lesson."

"I'm her sub-chef," Henry nodded sagely.

"Sous-chef," Snow gently corrected. David bit his lip to hide a smile.

"I knew it was something like that," Henry said, giving an embarrassed little shrug.

As David reached into the cabinet for the plates, Emma finally gave up the fight against being awake. She sat up, sleepily swiping a hand over her face. "Please tell me that's breakfast I smell. I'm frickin' _starving_."

Henry looked from his grandmother to his grandfather, all three of them stifling giggles. Emma was certainly her father's daughter, far more than she probably realized.

"What is it?" Emma asked as she pushed herself to her feet.

"Nothing," Snow smiled. "Nothing at all."


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note:** Just wanted to thank you all again for all your lovely comments so far. Every single one of them has brightened my day. I've been stuck at home the last couple of days with the summer cold to end all summer colds. (Seriously, I went through an entire pocket pack of tissues this morning.) Which is actually good news for you guys because it means y'all get an update. ;) I have no idea where this came from ... I just started typing, and David and Emma took over.

* * *

_Talent in the kitchen is clearly one more thing in my family line that skipped a generation_, Emma thought as she set her breakfast plate in the sink. Though Snow had handled the home fries, she had simply overseen her grandson as he prepared the bacon, eggs, and toast. Henry had done a remarkable job, and breakfast had been quite delicious.

With Snow and Henry busy with the breakfast dishes, Emma headed back to the living area to clean up from their midnight adventure. She folded the blanket that had been covering her when she woke and replaced it over the back of the sofa. Only after making a move to collect the pillows did she spot the mound of soft white yarn that had been buried beneath her pillow and the blanket.

Was that … it _was_. Her baby blanket.

How the hell had her baby blanket gotten down here? She kept that thing up in her room for a reason; she kept it hidden under her pillow for a reason. Wait a sec, the pillows …

A quick check proved that both pillows were hers. Her sheets were blue with little flower buds on them; Henry's were just solid blue. She'd only brought one of her pillows down the night before – er, earlier that morning? Whatever. The point was, either Henry or one of her parents had gone back upstairs to get her other pillow. And whoever it was must have found her baby blanket underneath it. _Damn_ it.

She swiftly balled up the small blanket before grabbing one of the pillows to use as cover. It was pretty much an impossibility that no one else had seen it, but she figured she might as well hide it, just in case.

All her efforts were wasted. "Busted," came a soft, amused male voice from behind her.

Emma whirled around to find her father regarding her with an amused grin. Busted was right. Sighing, she flopped back down on the sofa. She set the pillow down and held the blanket in her lap, her fingers kneading into the soft yarn. "Did you bring this down here or did she?"

"She did," David admitted as he took a seat next to her. "I didn't even know you still had it."

She shrugged somewhat uncomfortably. She'd kept it because it was the only connection she'd had to her parents. When she was little, she'd thought it would be a way for her and her parents to be able to recognize each other when they finally came back for her. Kind of like the necklace in _Annie – _not that she'd ever really cared for _Annie_, because talk about hitting close to home. As she got older, though, she'd kept it mainly as a memento, her only clue to the mystery that was her past, her identity.

Emma had had no intention of sharing any of that, which was why she was as surprised as her father was when she said, "It was the only thing I had that you gave me."

David held his breath and didn't say a word. Though he would never do so out loud, he seemed to be willing her to continue. For reasons entirely unclear to her, she did. "It always made me wonder, though. Blankets like this … something handmade and personalized? This isn't something people who don't want a baby make or have made for that baby. And I always wondered how people who wanted me enough to give me this then turned around and dumped me on the side of the road."

Her father tensed beside her. "Emma–"

Emma tensed herself, suddenly realizing the direction she'd taken the conversation. In an effort to avoid rehashing a discussion they'd had more than a few times already, Emma gave him a little smile. "Don't. I know you did what you had to do, and I know you did it out of love for me. It's just … this blanket always seemed like such a contradiction to me. I mean, why did my parents give me a name if they didn't want me? Why prepare for me with such loving care and then just throw me away? Now it all makes sense. You didn't throw me away … you saved me."

David swallowed hard, looking deep into his baby girl's eyes. Then, probably more to preserve her comfort than his, he tore his gaze from hers and reached out to finger a tuft of soft yarn. "I remember when Granny told us she wanted to knit you this blanket."

"Granny made this?" Emma asked, her voice low in amazement. Little Red Riding Hood's granny had made Emma her baby blanket? One of these days, revelations like that would stop knocking her off her feet. So in addition to running a diner and an inn and being a general badass, Granny could knit, too?

Oblivious to his daughter's zooming thoughts, David simply nodded in response to her question. His eyes were still focused on the blanket … no, not on the blanket, Emma realized after a moment. His gaze was directed inward, focused on some memory she couldn't see. "She asked Snow to pick the pattern and the colors and then she set to work. It took her weeks and she barely finished in time, but she loved every second of it."

Emma's throat began to constrict in just the right way to let her know that tears were imminent. In an effort to stop this conversation here and now, she covered the blanket with her pillow. The action finally broke David's concentration. He blinked up at her and smiled gently when he spied her glistening eyes. "I'm sorry if this is too much too soon, Emma, but you need to know that it's not just the love of your family you would have had." When she tore her gaze from his, he lifted her chin with his finger, forcing eye contact. "You would have had the love of an entire palace … an entire kingdom."

A flurry of conflicting emotions tugged at Emma's heart. The independent adult within her was kind of freaked out by the level of devotion people she didn't even know would have had to her but the little girl who grew up utterly alone longed for it. The adult tried to tell herself that there was no sense getting upset because it couldn't be changed but the little girl cried that it simply wasn't fair.

Instead of a life of pain and loneliness, she could have – _should_ have – had a life of love and celebration.

It _was_ too much too soon. So, as was typical when things became too much for her, she made a joke. "Great, so I would have been a celebrity? Did the Enchanted Forest have its own version of the paparazzi that we would have had to avoid?"

"Sort of," David chuckled, joking along with her.

"Wonderful." She caught her father's eye and got the sense that he had so much more so say but didn't want to push her any further. On the one hand, she was grateful that he knew when to push and when to let things go. On the other hand, she felt rather guilty that he couldn't open up to her the way he clearly wanted without having to worry about upsetting her.

Luckily, before things could become too awkward, Henry came to the rescue. He plopped down on the couch next to his grandfather, drying his hands on his pajama pants. "What are you guys talking about?"

David glanced over at Emma, who nodded at him with a little smirk. Why not let the kid in on their teasing conversation? David smiled back at her before refocusing on his grandson. "Whether or not your mom would have been able to handle being a celebrity."

Henry giggled. "She kind of already is. A celebrity, I mean."

Emma froze. "How so?"

He stared at her as if he couldn't believe she could be so clueless. "You're the sheriff and the savior _and_ you broke the curse. Plus your parents are Snow White and Prince Charming, so you're their rightful princess. Of _course_ you're a celebrity."

Well, damn it. He was right, wasn't he? She wasn't a Hollywood celebrity but yeah, she supposed she was famous in Storybrooke. All right, now she was beginning to get uncomfortable. "Well, maybe I should let my celebrity go to my head," she teased. "You know, start ordering you all around, making you wait on me hand and foot ..."

Henry and David both chuckled.

Snow finally joined them then, having finished up the breakfast dishes. "What's so funny over here?"

"Mom's a celebrity and she's thinking about letting it go to her head," Henry replied around a giggle.

When Snow fixed a bewildered look on her daughter, Emma started snickering herself. "Never mind, it was nothing. In actuality, before I was waylaid by pretty much everybody, I was trying to clean up. The power came back on while we were sleeping and you'd never know by looking out the window that there was a thunderstorm last night but this room is kind of a disaster."

She wasn't kidding. Dessert plates from their middle-of-the-night snickerdoodle break sat on end tables and shelves. Objects that had gotten kicked over during Hot and Cold In the Dark remained overturned. And, let's not forget, Emma hadn't yet made it upstairs to put away the pillows or the baby blanket she was still hiding. It was almost eleven, and everyone was still in their pajamas, for crying out loud.

"The mess can wait," Snow said, prompting incredulous looks from both David and Emma.

Snow, who couldn't stand letting a mess sit so much that she'd done the cookie dishes in the middle of the night while the cookies were baking, was telling Emma to let a mess sit? "Who are you," Emma asked, only half joking, "and what have you done with my mother?"

Henry clamped a hand over his mouth to hide his snicker. Snow merely smirked at her daughter, though she couldn't help collecting the four dessert plates strewn about the room and piling them together for easier removal. Then she scanned the sofa, looking it over left and right, top to bottom. Emma had a funny feeling she was looking for the baby blanket, which only made her tighten her grip on the pillow on her lap.

Unfortunately, Snow wasn't David and didn't always know when to back off. Or if she did know, she simply didn't care. She stepped forward and gently removed the pillow from her daughter's lap, revealing the soft yarn of Emma's blanket. "Thank you for keeping this, Emma."

All right, now this conversation had skidded back into way-too-mushy territory. Emma squirmed on the sofa before nodding in response. "Uh, you're welcome, I guess. Can I go put it away now? No offense, but its presence is kind of making the both of you all mushy and touchy-feely and … weird."

David snickered while Snow gave her an amused grin. "By all means," she said, handing Emma back the pillow, "go put it away."

"_Thank_ you," Emma breathed in heavy relief, resulting in another round of amused chuckles. Still, as she pushed herself off the couch and headed upstairs with both her pillows and her baby blanket, she had to hide a smile of her own.


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Note:** Once again, this story ended up being far longer than I ever intended. (Seriously, I was planning on thing being like, a three- or four-chapter minific.) And it's all because you guys are such amazingly awesome readers that I don't want to stop writing. Thank you so much for all the comments and favorites and follows. I hope you've enjoyed this story! It was a fun one for me to write. :)

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For a few blissful moments, Emma was alone. Not that she minded the family time at all; loath as she was to admit it, there was a small part of her that was thrilled to pieces with it. Somewhere deep inside her was an excited little girl who wanted nothing more than to bask in the love and the togetherness. But a lot of times that little girl's wishes were overshadowed by the adult who was unused to love and togetherness and needed some space.

And not that she did anything special with her alone time. She spent this particular few moments in utter domesticity. She made her bed, making sure to tuck her baby blanket back in its hiding place. Then she turned to get started on Henry's bed. The kid had made breakfast _and_ helped with the dishes, so she figured she owed him.

Just as she finished making her son's bed, she heard the unmistakable sound of someone starting to climb up the metal staircase to the loft. Emma took a deep breath, bracing herself for either a tentative knock on the doorjamb from her father or an exuberant entrance from her son. After a couple of footfalls, though, she realized who was coming.

"I don't know whether I should be impressed with myself or kind of freaked out that I'm starting to recognize the sound of your footsteps," she said with a little smirk as soon as her mother appeared at the top of the stairs.

Snow looked surprised for a moment before returning the smirk. "To be perfectly fair, it's not like it's that hard to figure out. Henry would be bounding up the steps two at a time and Charming, bless him, has a tendency to be rather heavy on his feet on lazy Sundays like this."

After a brief moment of thought, Emma smiled and gave her mother a nod. Everything she'd said was absolutely true. "This is probably the laziest Sunday I've had in … well, years. It's going to be noontime by the time I get dressed."

A grin curled onto Snow's lips as she glanced down at her own sleep attire. "Same here, but I figure we're allowed a lazy Sunday every now and then."

Emma nodded again, this time a little uncomfortably. How was it that her mother managed to slip vague – and sometimes not so vague – life lessons into the most innocent of conversations? Not only that, but Snow tended to lead with vague life lessons when she wanted to talk.

Emma gave a quiet sigh as she sank down on the edge of her bed. "I know you didn't come all the way up here just to tell me to enjoy the occasional lazy Sunday," she said, giving a slight nod in the direction of the empty spot beside her.

Her mother accepted the silent invitation, easing down next to her. "I'm sorry for springing the baby blanket on you."

She winced almost imperceptibly. She'd thought – hoped, really – that putting it away would have been the end of it. Out of sight, out of mind, and all that. Apparently not. "It's okay."

"I wasn't trying to make you uncomfortable," Snow continued. Emma groaned inwardly; she should have known that a simple, dismissive okay wouldn't have put an end to the conversation. This was one of those times when she really missed Mary Margaret Blanchard; she didn't remember the teacher being this overtly pushy. "It's just … not counting when I was Mary Margaret, the last time I saw that blanket was when I handed you to your father to take you to the wardrobe, and now ..." Emma tore her gaze from Snow's, which forced the rest of Snow's statement out in a rush. "I know it's silly, but I just wanted to be able to use it to comfort you, the way I should have been able to comfort you your whole life."

Well, then. This was far more than Emma had been expecting but somehow – she didn't even want to hazard a guess as to how – she knew exactly what to do and what to say. Swallowing hard, she pulled the blanket in question out from underneath her pillow, unfolded it, and handed it over to her mother. "You did give me comfort my whole life. Look at all the frayed yarn and loose stitches." She pointed to a couple of small circular stains no bigger than water droplets. "That right there? Dribbled chocolate ice cream no one was ever able to get out. This blanket didn't just get stuffed into a box and put on a shelf. I _used_ this sucker, every day and every night."

Snow ran her hand over the soft yarn, blinking away the sudden tears that had welled in her eyes. A few select spots were worn where her daughter's little hands had frequently gripped. Then she spotted an almost threadbare section of purple ribbon. She grasped it between her thumb and forefinger.

"That was exactly what I used to do," Emma said, pinching another section and running the ribbon between her fingers to demonstrate the action for her mother. "I liked the way the satin felt on my fingertips."

A gentle, nostalgic smile lit Snow's face. "I used to run the satin trim of the blanket on my bed in the palace between my fingers for the same reason."

Emma's breath caught in her throat. _All kids must like the way satin feels on their fingers_, she thought, because the notion of sharing such an innocent trait with her mother was a bit too much for her at the moment. She still had things she needed to say, and if she got distracted now, her courage would wane and those things would be left unsaid. "Even though you weren't there when I was growing up," she finished, softly and a lot more sagely than was typical for discussions about her past, "you were still there for me, in a way. I had this blanket from you. It was a poor substitute, sure, but it was a lot better than nothing."

The tears that had been building in Snow's eyes finally spilled over as she cupped Emma's face in her hands. "Thank you."

Emma allowed the contact for a long moment before finally pulling away. "Yeah, yeah," she murmured, smiling.

Snow smiled as well. Her baby's walls were back up but not quite as high as before. She handed Emma back the blanket and watched as she folded it and stowed it back under her pillow. "I suppose I should let you get dressed," she said, pushing herself to her feet.

"I do kind of want to move the day along a little bit," Emma admitted. Not that the family had a busy day ahead of them; the only thing on anyone's agenda was deciding on a couple of movies to watch.

Snow nodded and brushed her thumb over Emma's cheek before heading back downstairs. Once alone, Emma let out a heavy breath. _That_ was certainly a conversation she hadn't planned on having.

After taking a moment to let her emotions settle, Emma stood and began pulling clothes out of her dresser. Just as she turned to head down to the bathroom to change, she heard Henry bounding up the steps. He wasn't taking them two at a time as she and Snow had joked, but he was still quite clearly full of energy. Emma sighed and sank back down on the edge of her bed, admitting defeat. Getting dressed this morning was apparently not in the cards.

"Hi, Mom," Henry said as he stepped over to his dresser to pick out his clothes for the day. "I have a question for you."

_What a surprise_, Emma thought as she gave an indulgent roll of her eyes. "Oh, yeah? Shoot."

"Am I banned from ever waking you up during a thunderstorm again?"

The question took Emma by such surprise that she laughed. "No, you can still wake me up if you want to. Just, you know, don't expect to do what we did last night every time there's a thunderstorm."

Having chosen his outfit in a fraction of a second as eleven-year-old boys were wont to do, Henry slid his dresser drawers closed. "Okay."

Then he headed back downstairs, clothes in hand. Emma assumed he was heading to the bathroom to change. Maybe, just maybe, she might have a few minutes to herself now to get dressed. She held her breath, waited, and finally deemed it safe when she heard the mumble of her parents' voices as they tried to narrow down the choice of movies for the family to watch.

It was as she was running a brush through her hair that the tone of Henry's "okay" registered. That wasn't an agreeing "okay." That was a "Yeah, sure, Mom" "okay." As in he had every intention of expecting to do what they did last night every time there was a thunderstorm.

Emma sighed. This family thing was going to be the death of her, wasn't it? _Still_, she thought, allowing a little smile, _I suppose_ _there are worse ways to go_.


End file.
